Winslade's Offload wrote:
I think he is too small. And if Williams gets injured we would have two small.
Hayes may come through, but he will give us more to do from a defensive standpoint. Leyland looks similar in terms of abilities but hiding Leyland and Hayes in the defensive line when Williams is absent and the opposition forwards are 10m from our line ? And with a missing Williams it would look even worse because he is such a high quality defensive player, he seems to be everywhere when the opposition are attacking our edges.
I am happy to be proved wrong but I don't think this was the right move.
To be fair I think Williams is a bit of a freak as a half back in terms of his defensive ability but your point about him being out leaving us defensively vulnerable is well made. Our remaining half backs are 5ft 5 and 5ft 6. We know Hayes can defend but I also fear they could both get run over or leave our second rowers overworked.
We probably need at some point to do a definitive 'ins and outs' to see whether we think we've improved the squad from 2024 to 2025. However the risk in doing so is that there are plenty of unknowns, e.g. potential massive off season improvement from Lindop, Holroyd, Wood, Taylor-Wray etc., the bedding in of new signings and return from injury of Wrench, Bruines, Thomas etc. Too many factors to make a proper judgement for me at this stage and potentially at any stage of the off season.
Have we signed anyone that Wigan would have signed? I suspect not.
